


i was somebody else for a while

by counta



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, but the fourth made me pity him, i hated him violently the first three times i read the books, yet another addition to the endless list of riko character studies/introspections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 12:35:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15267615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counta/pseuds/counta
Summary: Riko has always been a stranger to his own skin.





	i was somebody else for a while

**Author's Note:**

> this is not a kevin/riko shipfic as i do not see them in a romantic setting and i prolly never will

The first time Tetsuji Moriyama beats him he beats him senseless. That's a story told many times over and it's always like this. Tetsuji is a master in his own right - though only as much as a master as Riko would ever be - and he's learned the manners and the ins and outs of all that he's been taught, but he still brings his shoes inside of the house because it bruises Riko more with the heel of his boot in Riko's ribs. The first time Tetsuji beats him he beats him with bare hands and legs and he breaks Riko's nose until his mouth fills with so much blood he has to keep it open, or else he cannot breathe. Tetsuji calls somebody to put it back together afterwards and washes his hands off the whole ordeal. He says "I will never touch you with my bare hands again for you are too vile."

He had been only thirteen at the time, and he had been hit - but never quite like this.

Riko doesn't say anything because he does not know what to and he doesn't say anything four years later when he finally does.

And that is: "Are you not the same as I - the leftover son your father did not even want to see."

He does not say it for he knows it would hurt him to do so just as much as it might hurt his uncle. He rubs at the slope of his nose in reminiscence but it is straight as if it had never been twisted sideways. Tetsuji had never again hit him in the face and he presumes it might be because he himself had had his jaw fixed anew for that. Riko might be estranged from the main family, but his face is still one of a Moriyama, and the price tag on it is just as heavy as it had always been. The thought of Tetsuji being brutalised gives him a sick glee and his stomach twists with it. He guesses it is just natural after all these years around him.

He scoffs every time he thinks about how much he has to humiliate himself calling him The Master.

Riko wishes his own father would beat him instead.

  
  
  


Kengo Moriyama is not the type of person who would acknowledge that in his family tree there is a person that carries his blood besides Ichirou so he does not come for Riko specifically. Instead a person of a person of Kengo's people comes down to West Virginia to tell Riko about how he will never deserve anything or amount to anything. They tell him his whole life is to be of service to the main branch and that much he knows. They tell him this - you cannot get the pretty and shiny things as they are for your brother, though you may not even address him as your brother, only as your Lord.

He is glad that Kevin has been in the Nest so long because it - along with Riko's own hands - has smothered the last of the spark that Kevin had cradled in the cage of his chest. He does not want to die but he knows that if he did he would take Kevin with him. It's the only consolation prize he ever got. The only bright thing that became marred enough that his brother did not want to take.

He does not dare think of it or he will want to tell Kevin something that isn't quite something he wants to say. He will want to beat the shit out of him, as well, but that's something Riko is used to.

Kevin had cared for him in a way nobody had - he beat that out of him as well. Riko had used to wake up for a long time with the only word in his language that he couldn't forget in his sleep - please, please,  _ please _ \- and Kevin had stroked his hair like it was the opposite - as if he was Kevin's prized possession. Nobody had told him what he was begging for and he was far too fucking stupid to figure it out for himself - if it had been for love, or for death, or for forgiveness he could not tell. He does not know what it was that he felt for Kevin either but it could never have been love for it was - it is - too black and ugly and writhing and begging for more. It was a raw feeling that made Riko want to claw his chest out, to do something but not  _ this. _ He wouldn't say it, he wouldn't ever say it.

(But if he had to he would say: "I am sorry that I broke you.")

That is, of course, if he knew why he was sorry in the first place.

  
  


He had been young when he had first killed a person. He had said it brought him joy as if to appease the uncle that he once thought would love him. He was a child and young and stupid and oh, god, how he had craved for love and understanding. How he had clutched his chest or it would feel like it would collapse in on itself and would swallow him whole. There was nothing that ever filled that void either.

He had said it made him happy (well, it did not make him sad either) but his uncle was not satisfied and Riko's hands had trembled so hard he could not unbutton his pants and his shirt so he had slept in them. He did not cry. He would not.

He had become eighteen at some point and by then he had killed many people. Seth Gordon was no exception but it did not feel as good as he expected it to, even though he thought it would. He could never be his uncle but he was another kind of awful, nonetheless. He was a child, still, and petty and angry and hot with shame and embarrassment. He was not to be made a fool of and he would demand every bit of respect he was due. He did not get any either way.

He had learned to take a life with the same cold detachment that he imagined his Lord would have done - impassive, with hands never as much as twitching.

He claps Kevin on the back on an Exy court and he remembers the room he still keeps the same way as it was when Kevin last set foot in it and he says, "Do not forget who you belong to."

The voice that he reckons is his own sounds like a sharp knife wound even to his own ears.

Kevin's eyes are dark with fear (or hate) and Riko wants to take his helmet off and stroke his face where he knows the number two is. He does not or he might leave bruises. The public loves them as long as they are the perfect faces of Exy and the perfect brothers and friends.

Riko laughs at the irony.

They would never be lovers or brothers or friends. They would never have anything more than this - a wildly mad fueled obsession to not forget the scars they left on each other.

  
  


This is the last time this story is told like this - 

When Riko almost slices Nathaniel Wesninski's face in half and leaves him battered and bruised on an Exy court so it would finish him off he thinks this is the first time he's truly enjoyed such a thing. The thought is so sudden that his stomach twists and he almost retches, violently trying to forget. He had been turning more and more into the uncle he wished death upon. Tetsuji Moriyama had been the only person that Riko thought he would  _ enjoy  _ seeing suffer.

What Riko does not say but he wants to is - I’m sorry I broke you (of course), I’m sorry I’m trying to take my skin off layer by layer to see if I’m human underneath, and I’m sorry I’m venomous, and I’m sorry - for most of all - for being born a second son. I'm sorry for being born at all.

For a second, he thinks of Jean and wonders if he had hated being born as well.

And despite all, Riko had never hated his Lord. If he had hated him he would have wanted to kill him and to take Ichirou’s place for his own, but the thought makes him recoil.

(When Ichirou presses a cold gloved hand into his cheek Riko is finally joyous - he sinks into the caress of his Lord - his brother, for the last time - and he does not know why theres something the size of an apple in his throat that makes breathing almost painful and brings him to tears. He closes his eyes and he allows himself a moment. Maybe he won't be taking Kevin with him after all but, he thinks, perhaps it is alright if Kevin hates him for the rest of his life. Riko would not live to apologise for it.)

**Author's Note:**

> send prompts, heated homosexual letters or hatemail to 19tfc.tumblr.com ; as always this work has been read through and edited by my honey ao3 user umirinos who is coincidentally the only person i know that i would let read my aftg fics


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